The photo, which the Wellses posted on their Facebook page (joking “This is our new milkman”) to let friends and family know about the kindness of a stranger, was reposted on the wildly popular social and news-sharing site, Reddit, by a friend who did not tell the family he was sharing it. Within hours, it had gone viral, cropping up in Facebook news feeds and Twitter streams, and spawning Internet memes.

Erin Clossey/eclossey@wickedlocal.com

When Brookline Police Officer John Bradley came walking up to the Wellses’ front door hefting two huge containers of milk, Kevin Wells, who was playing on the sun porch with 17-month-old son, Holden, snapped a quick photo.

“He thought it was cool there was a police officer bringing two gallons of milk,” said Wells’ wife, McKenzie, of Richards Road in Watertown.

The photo, which the Wellses posted on their Facebook page (joking “This is our new milkman”) to let friends and family know about the kindness of a stranger, was reposted on the wildly popular social and news-sharing site, Reddit, by a friend who did not tell the family he was sharing it. Within hours, it had gone viral, cropping up in Facebook news feeds and Twitter streams, and spawning Internet memes.

“A lot of people have tried to make [the photo] their own,” McKenzie Wells said. “We were like, ‘Oh my god, where are people getting it?’”

On Friday afternoon, April 19, after hours of being locked down in their home by officials trying to find one of the suspects in the deadly Boston Marathon bombing, McKenzie had poured Holden some milk for lunch, and realized they were almost out.

McKenzie’s mother, Trish Sommers, who was in town visiting from Colorado and unable to catch her flight back home, stuck her head outside, and caught the attention of Bradley, one of several officers stationed at the top of the Wellses’ hill.

Richard Road was more or less smack in the middle of most of Friday’s action — Dexter Avenue, where the early morning shootout with bombing suspects took place, is about a half-mile to the left, and Franklin Street, where suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was holed up in a resident’s boat for most of the day, is four or five blocks to the right, McKenzie said. So there was no shortage of law enforcement milling around.

Bradley came running down to see if everything was O.K., McKenzie said. Sommers assured him it was no emergency, just that they were almost out of milk and they had a small child in the house.

“He said, ‘No problem, I’ll get you milk,’” McKenzie said. “I’d say in less than an hour he was back.

“It was super sweet, we didn’t expect that to happen,” she added. “We offered to pay him for the milk, but he wouldn’t take our money.”

McKenzie said she didn’t know where the officer found the milk, but Brookline Police Lt. Phil Harrington, whom she spoke to on Monday, April 22, told her Bradley had to find a gas station to fill up his cruiser, and bought the milk there.

Bradley declined to speak to the press, through Harrington.

McKenzie Wells said while she likes the photograph itself, she’s not crazy about the memes that have sprung up around it. She actually pulled the photo from her own Facebook page because she was worried Bradley would be upset by it, but put it back up when she saw that the Brookline Police Department posted it on theirs.

Friday’s lockdown capped off a week of close brushes with the bombings and subsequent manhunt.

The family had gone to watch the marathon on Monday, and was actually standing at the finish line, but left a couple of hours before the bombs went off, McKenzie said.

“We wish everyone [injured] a quick healing time and recover,” she said.

Then, early Friday morning, Sommers heard shots as Watertown police got into a gun battle with the suspects. The police presence just grew in her neighborhood as law enforcement set up a perimeter around Arsenal Street, and eventually zeroed in on the Franklin Street boat that evening.

“I would say by 1:30 or 2 o’clock, we definitely had cops everywhere,” she said.

McKenzie said she wanted to thank all of the officers from Boston, Watertown, the state, the FBI, and communities like Brookline, including her “new milkman,” for keeping her family and neighbors safe.